Silicon Valley: The Untold Story

January 14, 2018

Silicon Valley has often been imitated but never duplicated. Though pieces of its history have been told, they have focused primarily on the Valley’s role in the development of silicon chips and computers. Yet there is a much bigger and largely untold story: for every decade or so since the early 1900s, Silicon Valley has spawned or nurtured not just new products but whole new industries: Vacuum tubes. Radio. Radar. Integrated circuits. Venture Capital. PCs. Printers. Genetic Engineering. Software. Networking hardware. The Internet. Social media. Cloud computing. Mobile.

The full scope and drama of the region’s evolution will be revealed in Silicon Valley: The Untold Story—a three-hour primetime series that examines how Silicon Valley has managed to stay on the cutting edge of innovation for so long and why its success has been so difficult to duplicate. Together with its website, digital media strategy and outreach effort, it will increase public understanding of a unique region—an enduring source of innovation, entrepreneurship, and world-shaking technologies—that has captured public imagination and changed the modern world. Production of Silicon Valley: The Untold Story is possible thanks to a generous grant from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Computer History Museum will be spearheading our public engagement and educational outreach effort.